SCIENCE FICTION’S FATHER

Press, 18 December 1976, Page 17

SCIENCE FICTION’S FATHER

Jules Verne. By Jean Jules-Verne. Translated by Roger Greaves. Macdonald and Jane’s. 245 pp. $17.55. (Reviewed by Eric Beardsley)

The scholarly Jules Verne industry threatens to surpass, if not obliterate, the work of that most industrious of French writers. Verne produced some 70 novels and novellas, 40 plays and libretti and short stories galore between 1848 and his death in 1905. At last count 26 full-length studies, 15 scholarly essays and dissertations, 25 articles in literary journals, a dozen special issues of worthy periodicals and scores of learned introductions to reprints of his work have been devoted to aspects of Verne — from the standard “life and work” by numerous biographers to the influences on his writing of such disparate characters as Edgar Allan Poe and Oedipus, his political and

social ideas, his imagination extraordinaire, chance and providence in his novels, his prophetic vision, his voyages extraordinaires, a biography of an imagination and, of course, some wretched quibbles about the authenticity of some scraps of his vast output.

One would imagine that the vein had been completely worked out. But Verne’s only surviving grandson, Jean Jules-Verne, who knew and lived with the founding father of science fiction, has the additional insight of a close family relationship to lend substance, colour and life to his biography and the result is a fresh appraisal which gets closer to Verne than other biographers, corrects a number of misapprehensions and sets his work nicely within the context of his life. In fact, Verne’s life was remarkably unremarkable, except for his determination to become a writer. The second son of a staid and unimaginative provincial lawyer, he was destined for a place in his father’s firm in Nantes, but while qualifying in Paris he met the Dumas, father and son. The young law student was charmed with the literary and theatrical circles to which they introduced him and determined to make writing his career. “My mind is made up.” he wrote to his unhappy father. “I know what I am, I appreciate what I will become.”

Initially it was the theatre that claimed his attention, but his early plays failed to create even a resounding tinkle. It was Poe’s bizarre tales that stirred his imagination and a close friendship with the French adventurer, Jacques Arago, that widened his vision and gave him the taste for adventure that he was to exploit in international best-sellers which are still widely read and filmed today. His publisher, Jules Hetzel, discovered where his true genius lay: in marrying fact with fiction.

Verne soon achieved fame, but unlike his characters he was no adventurer. He married a widow from the provinces and lived a private life in the quiet town of Amiens. He seldom ventured outside France except in one of his beloved yachts, the only extravagance he allowed himself. He visited Britain only once and never learnt English despite his predilection for oddly-named English heroes. On his one visit to America he travelled only from New York to Niagara Falls and back. He quarrelled with his one son. For support he relied on Hetzel and for solace he visited a mysterious woman in Paris, but covered these tracks very discreetly. Verne would obviously be flattered

at the critical attention focussed on him as his prophetic vision was confirmed by the advance of 20th century science and technology. In his heyday he was regarded, to his chagrin, as a populariser, an arranger of facts, and a number of critics deplored his almost complete disregard for literary elegance. But he had a style eminently suitable for the events and people he described. It was tough, dynamic and serious. He dealt in facts, spun an absorbing story and snared his readers by his evocation of place and his attention to detail. But Apollinaire, for one, admired the style, exclaiming in a little parody of it: “Jules Verne! What a style! Nothing but nouns!” Did it, in any event, matter? Verne not only proved himself one of the greatest story-tellers of all time, but he consciously set out to bridge the gap between literature and science. His work was amazingly prophetic and accurate in detail, a fruit of his meticulous scientific approach. His “From the Earth to the Moon,” for instance, in which the world’s first astronaut orbits the moon and, in a successor, returns to earth, was, at a pinch, ballistically feasible. The space vehicle, fired by a huge cannon, was of the right size and weight and followed the correct trajectories, theie was an air regeneration system and even the tracking telescope used was similar in power and location to the huge telescope installed much later at Mount Palomar.

Proof of the power and accuracy of Verne’s work was provided by the Apollo mission a century later. “It cannot be a matter of mere coincidence,” Frank Borman wrote to Jean Jules-Verne in 1969. “Our space vehicle was launched from Florida, like Barbicane’s; it had the same height and the same weight and it splashed down in the Pacific a mere two and a half miles from the point mentioned in the novel.” Borman’s wife, having read Part I of the Moon novel, was terrified that her husband might never return. He blithely suggested that she read Part 11. But Verne’s vision was even more remarkable. If he caressed the dream of scientific progress, he became increasingly fearful in his later years of the gulf that would open between man’s inventiveness and his wisdom and ability to control his creations, surely the most pressing problem facing the world today. It was not new continents the earth needed, said Captain Nemo, one of his favourite characters, but new men. Verne would no doubt be gratified today to see his scientific vision given reality, but he would be dismayed to discover that the new men have yet to appear.

The next page of literary news and reviews will be published in “The Press” on Friday, December 24, as “The Press” will not be published next Saturday, Christmas Day.